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Kattelo Consulting’s CEO, Kenneth Lo, was again delighted to be speaking at the SharePoint Saturday, Sacramento to a very enthusiastic audience. SharePoint business users, architects, developers and other professionals were all able to share their knowledge of SharePoint and upcoming new Microsoft products.

Kenneth spoke on Docs Without Folders – Organizing Documents with Content Types and Metadata. This presentation was geared towards those who were frustrated with the old-fashioned way of organizing folders. This was about going folder-less. It demonstrated how to streamline document management by strategically managing columns, content types and list views making it more convenient to organize folders.

Audiences responded positively to the presentation. Kenneth shared many tips and practices on how to leverage document management using metadata. Check out SharePoint Tips Page!

If you have any additional feedback, please do not hesitate to contact us. Ciao!

Kattelo Consulting will be proudly sponsoring Gateway to Leadership Conference & Career Expo by National Association of Asian American Professionals-San Francisco Chapter (NAAAP-SF) in San Francisco on September 29, 2012. Come by and say hello to our team by our booth during the conference! We would love to chat anything from newest SharePoint gossip to Star Wars (come to Kattelo’s side, we have cookies).

NAAAP-SF is hosting an exciting one-day conference to inspire and cultivate the next generation of Asian-American leaders in our community. Featured speakers include founders and CEOs from top companies and startups such as Zuora, Monster Cable, PwC, IW Group, Justin.tv, and more! Join us for a fun and knowledge-filled day where you will learn about SharePoint and network with various industry professionals.

With innovative technologies such as smartphones and tablets dominating our ways of communication, it is time to learn how we can make the most of our gadgets. Kattelo not only specializes in all things SharePoint, especially in SharePoint mobility. Now, we don’t want to brag but we are a SharePoint mobility consultancy for our soon-to-be-fans who have not heard about us yet. Lastly, with the upcoming release of new tablet Surface from Microsoft, imagine the possibility of combining mobility with SharePoint.

We will be at our booth at the career expo from 3pm-6pm, so don’t be shy and grab a cookie and some SharePoint tips!

Kattelo Consulting’s CEO, Kenneth Lo, fundraised for the 2012 Palo Alto Gran Fondo and Challenge on September 16. Kenneth biked 96 miles and donated all the proceeds to feeding undernourished families and citizens through the San Francisco Food Bank.

“This was a fun one! We spent almost half time time climbing pretty big hills. Luckily, Echelon Club (event organizer) offered excellent support before, during, and after the journey. The smoothies were especially a very nice touch; it positively helped us get over the 18% gradient and 60+ mph descent!”

To catch a glimpse what Kenneth was referring to, check out the route map.

We would like to thank you all our donors that donated and supported this great cause! Although we originally asked for a $5 donation, many of our supporters chipped in quite a bit more. It is already making a world of difference to a hungry child or senior citizen. God bless!

Overview of Fpweb.net

Over the last decade, Fpweb.net has emerged as the premier SharePoint hosting provider. They enable clients to build highly customizable and accessible SharePoint environments rapidly and securely. This cloud-based solution allows customers to incorporate scalability, availability, and shared resources to help boost productivity– which is what SharePoint does best.

By neatly housing hardware and software resources in their global data centers, Fpweb.net reorganizes clutter that can build up over years of assiduous work and company growth. As with any skilled technician, Fpweb.net takes care of technology infrastructure operations and maintenance so that companies can focus on core business and innovation. No longer do companies need to prepare for a complex in-house installation process.

“Our private cloud hosting solution, the SharePoint Cloud, is built for SharePoint speed, completely customizable, highly available and protected with serious security. Fpweb.net is trusted all over the world to provide enterprises the best value for their time and money. When you put our talent on your team, we make it easy to lower your total cost of ownership and bring the focus back on your business,” says Rob LaMear IV, CEO and Founder of Fpweb.net.

Often renowned for being the first company to host SharePoint, Fpweb.net continues to be a pioneer of generating innovative SharePoint solutions. Fpweb.net is the first company to host SharePoint 2010 and qualified as a finalist for 2010 Microsoft Partner of the Year. Now that’s what we call a company with a long track record.

Builds Infrastructure Instantly

Imagine a gourmet buffet that offers ready-made dishes but also allows customers to create their own delicious masterpieces. In a similar way, Fpweb.net deploys customized environments for development, testing, and production virtually instantaneously. Customers no longer have to wait for weeks to launch the needed SharePoint environments. Sites go live within days instead of weeks.

Moreover, Fpweb.net offers pre-engineered packages that work well for businesses to help design and deploy custom cloud solutions. For clients who are just getting acquainted with SharePoint, such offerings can kick-start and streamline what seems like an overwhelming initiative. On the other hand, for those who seek more control over their application and technical architecture, Fpweb.net offers the ultimate ability to customize via SharePoint’s omnipotent tools, Central Administration and Power Shell scripting.

Reduce Total Cost of Ownership

Instead of demanding large capital outlays, Fpweb.net allows companies to pay as they grow. Expenses for updating hardware, software upgrades, security, and repairs are all included in scheduled monthly or annual payments. Such arrangements permit companies to save up to 60% of what they would normally pay for procuring infrastructure. No longer do companies need to spend time and money ordering parts; they can entrust such tedious tasks to their reliable SharePoint provider. Through constant upgrades, Fpweb.net guarantees its clients with the latest hardware and software to ensure that their productivity will not suffer.

Endows Companies with Flexibility and Scalability

Virtualization technology allows companies to scale up and out without acquiring extra hardware and licensing or hiring additional IT support staff. Fpweb.net allows companies to scale up and down with minimal constraints by dynamically allocating hardware resources. This way, clients create an environment that fits their business, financial and technical needs. This implements the Goldilocks solution—they only need to pay just the right amount, nothing more and nothing less. This way, they can save tremendously on capital expenditures and operations cost. These amenities empower clients to wield administrative control over their SharePoint environment.

Expands Collaboration Across Workforce

With Fpweb.net, clients can leverage SharePoint to build intranet, extranet, and public-facing web sites to communicate with employees, external partners, and consumers. SharePoint features tools for Content, Project, Document, and Workflow management and creation as well as enterprise-scale search to promote group communication and collaboration. SharePoint maximizes collaboration and personalized experiences in a single platform across different security boundaries. Thanks to the cloud’s storage of files and software, employees can work collaboratively anytime and anywhere.

Offers Superb Customer Support

Fpweb.net offers a sturdy ecosystem of customer support. A dedicated SharePoint support team is ready to answer all questions about deploying hosting solutions 24/7, 365 days a year. Fpweb.net takes extra precautions to protect their customers’ business by preparing a flexible disaster recovery and backup options for their private SharePoint Cloud. It leaves you prepared to deal with the worst-case scenario. This standby environment enables clients to recover data and files within minutes. In addition to constant hardware and software upgrades, clients can reach customer support by phone call, live sales chat, and responsive social media teams.

Summary

Fpweb.net is the ideal SharePoint hosting provider for companies that need an extreme makeover. Apart from reducing IT maintenance costs, it synthesizes tools for speedy collaboration and workflow management in a singular platform. Offering pre-built server farms and room for customization, Fpweb.net appeals to businesses with both minimal and extensive knowledge of SharePoint. The world can be your oyster as long as you have a vision in mind. By fostering a strong professional relationship with clients, Fpweb.net helps clients actualize their unique visions and ideals.

As we enter September, we are anticipating that the holiday season will be approaching sooner rather than later. In order to help our community experience a more festive holiday season, Kattelo Consulting will be fundraising for the 2012 Palo Alto Gran Fondo and Challenge on September 16. Kattelo CEO, Kenneth Lo, will be biking for 96 miles and all the proceeds (Donate) will go towards feeding undernourished families and citizens through the San Francisco Food Bank.

Leading our campaign will be Kattelo Consulting’s CEO, Kenneth Lo, a former Category 3 bike racer who helped his alma mater, University of Virginia, win the NCCA (National Collegiate Cycling Association) championship. Still an avid cyclist, Kenneth now prefers making frequent beer stops and smelling the roses.

We invite you to join our team as a rider and/or at least donate to our cause. Even a $5 donation from each of you would make a world of difference to a hungry child or senior citizen. This simple process would take less than 3 minutes, and we would appreciate your contribution. Our goal is to fundraise at least $500 for undernourished families.

Kattelo Consulting’s CEO, Kenneth Lo, enjoyed a very busy week in our nation’s capital. Kenneth was extremely honored to be speaking at the Federal SharePoint User’s Group meeting and SharePoint Saturday in Washington D.C. We’d like to thank our sponsors and production crew for putting on an excellent show.

On Saturday morning, Kenneth gave a presentation on user adoption strategies, titled Creating Massive User Adoption for SharePoint 2010—Sun Tzu Style. Kenneth drew upon core concepts from a classic Chinese military strategy book, The Art of War by Sun Tzu, to illustrate how adopting SharePoint can enhance management and migration practices. Despite the beautiful weather that morning, we had excellent turnout.

Both audiences responded very well to the demo-focused sessions. Kenneth shared many tips and practices on how to leverage SharePoint for sound content management and building strong infrastructure.

If you have any additional feedback, please do not hesitate to contact us. Ciao!

Kattelo Consulting’s CEO, Kenneth Lo, will be speaking at Federal SharePoint User’s Group meeting at the Microsoft Chevy Chase Center. The new mobile features of SharePoint 2010 render global access ever more available. Consequently, many of us are balancing between working from the office and telecommuting via the Internet. By the end of this session, you will truly be “street smart” with the knowledge of mega industry trends in order to most effectively utilize SharePoint. In our live demo, we will showcase key SharePoint maneuvers such as collaboration, business intelligence, and business process management, on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. RSVP here

That very same Saturday, Kenneth will join SharePoint professionals and MVPs at SharePoint Saturday DC, where they will share their knowledge and expertise on how to maximally utilize Microsoft SharePoint technologies. Kenneth’s session will center on user adoption for SharePoint 2010. SharePoint Saturday DC is free, open to the public, and is a phenomenal chance to acquaint you with SharePoint! You don’t want to miss this opportunity.

CloudShare combines the best features of SaaS (Software as a Service) with the best features of IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) to deliver strong performance via the cloud. Coupled with Microsoft Azure and Office 365, CloudShare also offers a fluid integration and deployment pathway, further speeding up the entire solution development cycles.

Its accessibility, flexibility, and speed have rendered it a must-have platform. This solution appeals to a wide range of businesses that include successful small and medium-sized businesses as well as Fortune 500 companies.

On-Demand Infrastructure

By offering a complete development environment, CloudShare allows companies to bypass lengthy hardware procurement and software configuration processes. CloudShare offers pre-installed, fully licensed operation and application systems (SharePoint 2007/2010/2013, Microsoft SQL Server 2008/2010/2012, and many others). CloudShare takes care of all aspects of the logistics, operations, and maintenance; therefore, companies can focus more on their core business and less on IT infrastructure. Access to pre-configured development environments, including Visual Studio, Office, SharePoint, is merely mouse clicks away. Gone are days where it takes weeks, if not months, to cook up a similar environment.

Lower Total Costs of Ownership

The Pay-As-You-Go model of subscription permits companies to pay only according to how much of the hardware resources they use and saves them from providing a huge upfront cash outlay. This definitely appeals to all CFOs; by incorporating various tools into one web-based platform, CloudShare helps companies save on their total cost of ownership.

Flexibility and Scalability

As CloudShare dynamically allocates hardware resources to its customers, it delivers infrastructure and environments for development and testing within minutes. For instance, it builds a single or multi-server SharePoint farm to create a private network for organizations. It also clones and makes server snap shots for various testing scenarios. Because it can easily add environments as needs arise, CloudShare especially benefits companies undergoing dynamic growth and expansion.

Collaboration without Boundaries

CloudShare leverages pre-built, customized server images to accelerate deployment. Companies can choose from simple to complex environments for development and testing in the cloud. They can connect all of this to existing on-premise tools and workflows. This multifunctional program enables internal and external parties to contribute by using a web browser or standard Remote Desktop applications. The cloud permits global access; anyone with Internet can enter these environments. This enables employees to collaborate across departments and outside their organization.

Customer Support Ecosystem

CloudShare supports its customers with a growing collection of video tutorials, a comprehensive Q&A section, and forums. In addition to the regular phone and email support, their social media teams keep a close watch and typically respond within minutes. As one can see, CloudShare supports its customers across multiple platforms to foster a strong user ecosystem.

Summary

CloudShare is an excellent choice for companies that wish to save on financial and temporal costs for building and testing software in various infrastructures. As CloudShare features pre-installed environments to develop and test projects, it bolsters flexibility and scalability for organizations with dynamic and sophisticated technical needs. CloudShare joins the league of cloud-based software programs that supply its customers with a wide range of services, solidifying the premise that ‘the customer is king’.

Overview of Microsoft Office 365

Featuring the newest cloud technologies, Microsoft Office 365 empowers organizations large and small to bolster their productivity and efficiency in terms of speed, compatibility, and costs. In addition to upgrading familiar tools such as Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote, Office 365 offers its customers with cloud-based collaboration and communication services through Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online, and Office Professional Plus. This user-friendly and all-inclusive package enables companies to focus more on its core business and less on technical infrastructure, which Microsoft handles exceptionally well.

Total Costs of Ownership

Not only does Office 365 include familiar applications and programs, it also features online office collaboration software for email, document sharing, and web conferencing. Office 365 surpasses other file-sharing programs such as Google Docs and Dropbox because it combines familiar and new tools in one comprehensive package to save companies from paying for each program or module. By incorporating these various tools into one web-based platform, Office 365 enables companies to easily standardize on the latest software packages, which Microsoft updates “automagically” on their customers’ behalf. Less upfront capital outlay and lower total costs of ownership puts a smile in most CFOs.

Collaboration & Real-Time Communication

Through Lync Online, Exchange Online, and SharePoint Online, Office 365 promotes communication and collaboration among employees. For example, SharePoint Online allows users to share and track different versions of documents. By authorizing only one user to work on each document, SharePoint Online minimizes the risk of users overwriting each other’s work, which often occurs in other file-sharing solutions. For other occasions where real-time interactions are needed, team members leverage Lync Online and its unified communication capabilities (instantly message, online voice and video chats) to hold online meetings and to review documents. Needless to say, fewer meetings mean less time out of office and traveling costs.

Accessibility

Office 365, although some may argue, is the most accessible, multifunctional platform, especially for employees of various technical expertise. Building upon employees’ familiarity with Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, Office 365 allows them to use these tools within a web browser and authenticate with their existing credentials in Active Directory. In addition, Office 365 works equally well in Windows or Mac. This level of accessibility increases productivity, as employees bypass the tribulations of setup and instead focus on their core competencies and productivity.

Customer Support

Highly acknowledged for its outstanding customer service, Microsoft offers phone support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When users encounter technical issues, they can seek help from a real customer representative instead of trying to navigate an automatic voice system (aka voicemail hell). For instance, Kattelo Consulting was helping one of their clients migrate from Google Apps to Office 365 earlier this year. While the migration process went smoothly for IMAP (cloud-based webmail) users, we ran into some unexpected behaviors helping a handful of users who downloaded their messages off the mail server. Within minutes, we were able to reach Office 365’s customer support via telephone. A live customer representative provided us with pointers to resolve this slight roadblock. Now that is what we consider to qualify as customer support!

Flexibility & Scalability

All in all, Office 365 significantly reduces IT costs and administration. Subscribers only pay according to how much of the service they use. For instance, Kattelo Consulting has been experiencing exponential growth in a couple of consecutive quarters in 2012. In order to accommodate its growth, Kattelo adopted Office 365 because the pay-as-you-go subscription offers maximal flexibility and scalability. Kattelo can immediately set up new offices, departments, or business units to accommodate the dynamic growth of the company.

Access Anywhere

Lastly, Office 365’s cloud-based software permit Kattelo consultants to access work files and documents via Internet access so they can be productive anywhere. While this enables Kattelo employees to create more flexible work schedules, they may also feel pressured to work not only in the office but also at home. Furthermore, because current cloud-based solutions involve relying on network and bandwidth, employees may experience difficulty with working outside the office.

Summary

Office 365 offers small to midsize businesses with reliable and secure tools for enhanced collaboration and productivity. Widespread implementation of Office 365 reduces IT costs and administration, as companies no longer have to run or outsource large data centers, and they only have to pay according to how much they use. Like all cloud-based services, Office 365 may feature some connectivity issues. This minor inconvenience can be offset by the accessibility and strong technical support of this multifunctional program that strengthens internal communication and reduces expenses. Overall, Office 365 would be an excellent investment for companies that are seeking to save costs and enhance their productivity and efficiency.

Kattelo Consulting’s CEO, Kenneth Lo, was extremely honored to be speaking at 2012 SharePoint Saturday, San Diego. The turnout was very respectable given the usually awesome weather that day. Nonetheless, the sponsors and production crew put on an excellent show. Two thumbs up!

Kenneth Lo had two presentations that afternoon. First up was More SharePoint, Less Email. The primary audience for this session was SharePoint end-users. Kenneth borrowed the core concepts of a classic Chinese military strategy book, The Art of War by Sun Tzu and illustrated the pros and cons of collaborating with email and SharePoint. The Outlook and SharePoint integration on the Office 365 platform was clearly the star of this demo.

The second session, Docs without Folders: Organizing Documents with SharePoint Content Types and Metadata, turned out surprisingly well. Metadata is an intense subject even during a normal work week. Did we already mention that it was 76 degrees and sunny out that afternoon?!

Anyhow, the crowd seemed rather pleased that this session was demo-focused. Kenneth shared many design tips and best practices on how best to leverage SharePoint content types and site columns to organize documents within SharePoint. The bonus demo was showing the attendees how to actually use metadata both inside and outside Microsoft Office documents. This undoubtedly helped justify the efforts to tag new and pre-existing documents.

For readers who would like to experiment with this at the comfort of their homes (or offices), check out page 17 of the slide deck below, or head straight to the MS Office 2010 Ribbon > Insert > Quick Parts > Document Property. If you have any additional feedback, please do not hesitate to contact us. Ciao!